Many kinds of electronic equipment are comprised of two or more circuit boards which are interconnected to each other by way of a backplane. A typical backplane takes the form of a substrate (e.g., glass epoxy) having a plurality of spaced apertures therein, each sized to receive one end of a conductive pin which typically extends therethrough. Each pin extends from the backplane into a passage in an edge connector carried by a separate one of the circuit boards. An electrical contact finger extends into the passage in the edge connector and connects the pin to a metallized pattern on the circuit board. The ends of the pins received in the backplane apertures are selectively interconnected, either by metallized patterns on the backplane, or by separate wire conductors, to interconnect two or more circuit boards.
The length of the pins inserted into the backplane apertures and the spacing therebetween is determined by the size and number of circuit boards to be interconnected thereby, as well as the component density on each board. In certain types of electronic equipment, such as large digital computers, it is not unusual for the backplane to have as many as two thousand pins, arranged in one or more matrix arrays. The spacing between adjacent pins in each array is often no larger than 3-4 mm. Further, the length of the pins often varies from array to array on a single backplane. The close spacing between the pins and the variation in the size thereof have made automation of the pin insertion process very difficult. As a result, insertion of pins into the backplane has required a large amount of manual labor, making the process expensive and time consuming.
Accordingly, there is a problem in achieving high-speed, automated insertion of pins into a substrate, such as a backplane.